


Murder Most Fowl

by sno4wy



Category: Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Genre: Gen, Sticky Fingers, Wand of Avian Wonder, Wand of Wonder, unknown magical item shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-04 22:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16798138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sno4wy/pseuds/sno4wy
Summary: Jarlaxle's hat has lost its feather, and the de-feathered drow recruits a reluctant Entreri to help him replace it. Where their efforts lead them surprises more than just the assassin.





	1. A Fine Feathered Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Contrary to the title, no birds were harmed in the making of this fic.
> 
> Yet. >_>

“Don’t you have enough magical trinkets already?” The human’s scowl dragged his face down so much that the disapproval in his flinty eyes could’ve spilled right out over his prominent cheekbones. 

“My _abbil_ , there is no such thing as ‘enough’ magical trinkets,” the drow simply laughed and patted his companion on the shoulder with one hand, his other hand already going to the next item on the shelf. 

There they were, in an abandoned wizard’s tower, the mercenary moving about so casually that it was as though he already owned the place. However, each of the flamboyant figure’s steps only served to increase the assassin’s apprehension.

“Remind me again why we are here?” Entreri slapped his companion’s hand away from a desiccated bird skull. 

“I hardly need to, just as you hardly need to ask,” Jarlaxle replied, pointing at his featherless hat. 

The assassin blew out a frustrated sigh. “Yes, I can see that your feather is missing. I have accompanied you here to see to its replacement, not to partake in a tour.” Entreri swallowed his next words about the imprudence of ransacking a mage’s abode, for he knew it would just fall upon deaf ears.

“We are already here, it would be profligate to not fully explore the potential opportunities!”

Entreri snorted. “You’re one to talk about profligate.”

Jarlaxle simply smiled and tipped his hat. Entreri sighed and touched a hand to the black and red stitched gauntlet, not for the first time reassuring himself of its presence. 

“Aha!” The drow’s exclamation whirled the startled human about. Widened gray eyes immediately narrowed when they beheld a wand brandished in the ebony fingers.

“That’s not a feather,” the irritated man stated flatly.

“Your powers of observation are as potent as ever I see.”

Entreri resisted the urge to snatch the thin stick from the deceptively delicate obsidian digits. Stiffly, he forced himself to turn toward the ornate stand where the implement had rested.

“Wand of Avian Wonder,” the assassin read, his brow knitted. He glanced to his companion with a raised eyebrow.

Jarlaxle nodded excitedly. 

“ _This_ is what we came for? Not a replacement feather?”

“Why settle for one feather, when one could possess many?”

Realization dawned upon Entreri. “That was your plan all along?”

Jarlaxle nodded again.

“Truly, your greed knows no bounds.”

“I prefer to think of it as imagination.”

“You would so delude yourself.”

Jarlaxle simply laughed.

Shaking his head with resignation, the assassin diverted his attention to scanning his surroundings again. Not for the first time, his gaze alighted on each of the countless birds mounted within glass cases that lined the walls. Their unblinking, beady lifeless stares unsettled him.

“I’ve encountered a fair number of wizards,” Entreri mused aloud, “Yet none were quite so eccentric as this one.”

His companion was only half-listening, the drow’s elegant fingers tracing the length of the sleek wand as he turned it over and over. “My informants told me that he wasn’t born of this world. I know not the amount of truth in those tales, but they did speak of a word that is most strange, that the man used to refer to himself.”

Intrigued, Entreri turned and met the only set of eyes that shone with their own light.

“Ah, what was it… it was a word unlike any other that I’d heard before, said to mean ‘one who studies birds’…” The drow’s handsome features crinkled with concentration, his free hand rubbing his smooth chin. 

“Aha! Ornithologist!” Jarlaxle proudly declared with a flourish of the wand.

The assassin’s surprised blink lasted only a fraction of a heartbeat, but in that span of time, his companion, who stood clearly before him before his eyes had closed, was replaced by a… fog? when his eyes opened again. 

Entreri’s first reaction was that someone had drawn Charon’s Claw from his hip and called forth an ash wall, but when his hand went to the blade’s hilt, it found the familiar skull pommel secured in his weapons belt. However, before he even fully internalized this fact, a deafening cacophony of buzzing filled his ears. The assassin fought back the instinct to press his hands against his ears, forcing them to stay at his sides, ready to draw. 

The sight before him was nothing short of chaos, an ever-shifting veil of incessant buzzing, an outline that was more mutable than water. He’s briefly reminded of the swarms of spiders skittering the countless webs decorating Menzoberranzan, and the memory turned his skin to gooseflesh. 

Suddenly, flailing ebony arms poked out from either side of the strange fog, shattering the dark recollection. Further enhancing the now comedic effect were “particles” of the fog tumbling away, trailing with them puttering buzzes. Instinctively, the assassin’s eyes pored over the exposed ebony skin. Upon finding no punctures, scratches, or even so much of a mark, Entreri smiled, and nodded with grim satisfaction. He guessed his companion to be shouting something, but he couldn’t hear over the buzzing. Still, judging by the vigor of Jarlaxle’s flailing, Entreri guessed that the mercenary was, more or less, unharmed.

One of the fog particles landed on the floor and bounced away with a series of soft squeaks. After ascertaining that the Jarlaxle fog ball was still flailing with the appropriate amount of vitality, Entreri cautiously approached the particle, which was now feebly bouncing on the floor, emitting short bursts of buzzes. Although his keen eyes could easily discern the nature of the particle from his standing height, the assassin crouched to get a closer look, for he could scarcely believe what he saw. There, flopping about trying to get airborne again was a tiny, brightly-plumed bird, smaller than his thumb. 

A shift in his immediate surroundings called Entreri’s attention back to the Jarlaxle fog ball. The mercenary’s legs were visible now too, for he’d fallen to his hands and knees, blindly groping after the wand that was rolling away from him. The innumerable tiny brightly-plumed birds continued to swarm around the floundering figure.

Each time that Jarlaxle’s fingertips brushed against the wand, inevitably, one of the horde of tiny birds would flit in startlement, sending the wand rolling away further. Although Entreri couldn’t hear Jarlaxle’s cries of dismay, he could imagine them well enough. The assassin watched the spectacle with a thin smile, nodding with satisfaction each time that the drow’s latest attempt to seize the wand was yet again foiled by one of the colorful critters. 

When Entreri finally kicked the wand into Jarlaxle’s grasping fingers, it was hardly because he’d grown bored of watching the mercenary receive his just reward. The sun was setting, and an eccentric wizard’s abode was among the least desirable places for him to spend the depth of night. He stepped back, predicting that his companion would call upon the magic of the wand again, and wanting no part in whatever chaos he was certain would ensue. 

The wand didn’t so much as flourish this time, but rather, flailed at the end of the drow’s fingertips. Faintly heard among the still cacophonous buzzing of the bird swarm, Entreri was able to make out the half-word “-thologist” being gasped out by a winded-sounding Jarlaxle. To the assassin’s surprise, no explosion of diatryma, rocs or axe beaks emerged. The horde of hummingbirds didn’t disappear either, but the fog began to disperse, each member simultaneously losing interest in the brightly-colored, sweet-scented “flower” that it’d been enveloping. 

The flock scattered so quickly, in so many different directions, that Entreri had to back away lest he was caught in the feathery pandemonium. Nonetheless, there were enough of them to obscure his vision, and only after many breaths later did he realize that Jarlaxle was not there. 

Entreri’s expression instantly drew grim. One hand thrust into the gauntlet and tore it lose from his side, dagger brandished in the other. Gloom had already began pervading the tower, and the assassin squinted into each dark corner in search of the entity that whisked away Jarlaxle with its foul magic. 

But there was nothing, no eyes met his except for the innumerable pairs of tiny, beady, lifeless ones, and no tingle of magical energy raised the hairs on the back of his neck. There was, in fact, no movement at all, except…

The thin wand rocked back and forth, having been caught in an indentation in the floor. And, next to the wand, was one of the tiny birds.

After one final look around to ascertain the sanctity of his surroundings, the assassin cautiously approached the wand and the bird. The small creature was the same kind as the others, but much more brightly plumed, and, even more curiously, possessed a pair of ruby eyes in lieu of the beady black ones of all the others.

 _Ruby eyes_ , Entreri realized with a start. He studied the bright purple of its head, wings and tail, taking in the iridescent quality of the rest of its plumage, which seemed to alternately present all the colors of a rainbow. All the while, the bird didn’t move, didn’t attempt to fly, only staring up at him. It almost looked… contrite?

“Jarlaxle?” Entreri chanced. The tiny bird nodded in a decidedly non-avian way.  
The assassin breathed a long, drawn-out sigh. He gingerly picked up the wand with his protected hand, and carefully set it back upon the stand from which the drow had lifted it. A buzz from behind him drew his gaze, and he almost felt pity for the transformed mercenary attempting, and spectacularly failing, to lift off.

“I know what you want me to do,” Entreri said, “But I’m not going to do it.”

More indignant buzzing sounded out from behind him.

“I could just leave you here,” the assassin’s tone turned icy, and the buzzing immediately stopped.

Shaking his head, Entreri sheathed his dagger and shed his gauntlet. He crouched before “Jarlaxle”. 

“Have you learned your lesson?”

The transformed drow didn’t nod this time, but remorse filled his ruby eyes. _Not enough remorse_ , Entreri silently noted, for that ruby gaze darted to the wand resting back in its stand.

The assassin sighed helplessly and laid his hand on the floor, palm offered to his companion. “Come, let us be gone.”

Jarlaxle hopped into Entreri’s palm, surprising the man with how little a difference the tiny passenger made, even to his sharpened senses. A curious sensation filled the assassin’s chest, uneasiness coupled with inexplicable heat. Finding himself tensing, the perplexed man cleared his throat.

“Do inform me before you revert so that you don’t break my wrist.”

Entreri felt rather than saw Jarlaxle’s response. Something very thin and very delicate traced a groove in his palm, shooting shivers down his spine. 

“Not like that!” Entreri snapped, only to be rewarded with more involuntary shudders.

Although the assassin was certain he held his palm still despite the tremors of his body, Jarlaxle seemed to know regardless. The little bird did not relent, and between fighting the instinct to close his fist around the offender and resisting the flutters coursing through his body, Entreri was left quite breathless.

“Jarlaxle, I swear, if you do not stop, I will crush you,” Entreri warned, but he doubted that his shaky voice could even intimidate a hummingbird that wasn’t transformed from the most obnoxious of drow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The word, “ornithologist”, doesn’t actually exist in Common, for the etymology of the word is based in our Latin, rather than their Thorass. There exists across Faerûn as well as other parts of the Realms portals linking Toril to other worlds, including Earth. While an entity needs to be as powerful as Elminster to intentionally use these portals to traverse back and forth between the worlds, to find them purely by chance can happen to pretty much anyone from any of the connected worlds. It’s this facet of FR canon that inspired me to transport a hapless ornithologist from our world to theirs. Since the type of rigorous arcane studies engaged in by wizards is similar to the practices of scientists, I’d always figured that a scientist in our world would probably gravitate towards wizardry, should they find themselves inadvertently stuck in the Realms. As for what happened to the scientist-wizard and why he isn’t there to defend his tower against the interlopers, well, that’s up to your imagination. :P
> 
> The “Wand of Avian Wonder” is a modified version of the classic D&D item, Wand of Wonder. The idea is that the ornithologist, in his obsession with birds, modified it so that all of its effects became bird-themed. 
> 
> Jarlaxle’s never tiny and helpless. Even when he seems to be, he still manages to discover and exploit one of Artemis’ erogenous zones. >_>


	2. Wand of One Durr

“I still fail to see why you could not simply order your pet psionicist to make you a new one.” 

The diffuse light in the spiraling stair column was so scant that only the assassin’s furrowed brow and prominent cheekbones would’ve been seen by normal eyes. However, Artemis Entreri didn’t need light to clearly discern his feathered companion nestled snugly in his left palm, but he wondered if the transformed Jarlaxle could, in turn, see him just as well.

Not that the drow-turned-hummingbird seemed particularly interested in looking at the human. Those ruby eyes, clever even in their smaller incarnation, darted to and fro, and Entreri resisted the urge to clap his right hand over his left one, lest the troublesome mercenary spot something else “interesting”.

_Troublesome indeed_ , the assassin thought with a scowl. His body was still taut from the earlier ordeal imposed upon him by his now feathery handful, and this was compounded due to his inability to employ his left arm thanks to it being the new home for the trouble’s originator. Finally, that inability to shed tension from his form only served to prolong his feeling of needing to sneeze.

Back in the room with the endless glassy pairs of beady eyes, Entreri had been at his wit’s end, keeping his legs underneath him in the wake of Jarlaxle’s relentless “onslaught”. Thankfully, the transformed drow had apparently overestimated the amount of energy that his tiny body possessed, suddenly falling onto his side, then rolling onto his back with his sprig-like feet stiffly clawing the air. When the bird didn’t respond to his pokes, Entreri had started back for the wand, and his fingers even brushed it before his keen eyes noticed the faint rise and fall of the iridescent chest. 

A tingling in his palm called the assassin back from the memory.

“Not again!” Entreri’s glare shot to his companion, and his mouth opened to berate him, but then noted that in lieu of the precise, deliberately measured strokes that the bird had performed before, now, Jarlaxle was flailing his wings and kicking his feet. The perplexed human wondered briefly if the transformed mercenary was attempting again to fly, but there was no buzzing. 

Realizing with a start the alternative possibility, Entreri hastily set the bird down on the next step, hopping back as soon as Jarlaxle rolled out of his palm. Even still, he wasn’t swift enough, for the drow reverted back with a loud “pop!”, then promptly vomited onto his companion’s boots.

“Seriously?” Entreri exclaimed, disgusted, but also surprised at the lack of rage in his own tone.

Jarlaxle was leaning heavily against the wall and retching. A stray ray of sunbeam caught his slender form as it convulsed, and the assassin wondered if the mercenary had always looked so delicate. 

Entreri eyed the puddle running down the stairs and plotted a way around it. He began moving towards his companion. “How fare you?”

Jarlaxle had drawn a handkerchief and was wiping his mouth with it. He’d begun to stagger to Entreri when his eyes bulged.

“Privy?!”

“What?”

To Entreri’s great astonishment, Jarlaxle charged past him back up the stairs, the abruptness of his rush forcing the assassin to reflexively jump aside. 

Unfortunately, the drow’s earlier discharge was directly in his chosen trajectory, and the poor man had to forego his usual grace in order to save his boots from being further coated by his companion’s ejecta. 

Although no stranger to tainted environments, the assassin reluctantly set off after his companion, preferring to draw his quickened inhales in cleaner air. His steps were slowed, however, by the painful moans echoing through the stone corridor. He wondered where to stop, to grant the drow proper privacy, and more importantly, not subject himself to a different but equally unappealing odor.

Thankfully, Entreri didn’t need to contemplate the matter too much, for Jarlaxle, a shaky, unsteady Jarlaxle but Jarlaxle nonetheless, awaited him around the stairwell’s next curvature. The mercenary’s usual obsidian-black skin looked ashen as spent charcoal. 

Entreri shook his head and sighed. Without a word, he firmly seized his companion’s left arm, threw it over his own shoulders while his right hand simultaneously caught the drow’s waist. He knew Jarlaxle’s weight well enough to discern that the mercenary was leaning heavily on him, the sensation heightening the uneasiness that’d been stirred by his recollection of the room full of lifeless stares.

Wordlessly, the assassin eased them both down the long, spiraling stairs. More than once, he wondered if the shallowness of his own breath was influenced by the drow’s soft panting. 

“Kimmuriel is preoccupied with other tasks,” Jarlaxle croaked.

Entreri flinched, the drow’s soft tones cutting through the rhythm of their shuffling steps. 

“Why didn’t you just use your portable hole?” 

Jarlaxle craned his neck up to regard his companion with a raised eyebrow. “Unthinkable! Surely, you know of how often I use it as a pass through!”

“So, before the next time you use it, clean it.”

The drow shook his head. “There might not be a chance to do so. Before our journey’s end, we might have need of it, employing it in its proper custom. Besides, I would not so mistreat that which I’d often use to store precious things.”

“Such as myself, I presume,” Entreri intoned sarcastically.

Jarlaxle hid a laugh in a cough. Entreri knew it to be fake, but still, he could feel the occasional shudder coursing through the body against his own, and knew through their proximity that those convulsions were involuntary.

“You’re fortunate that I haven’t dropped you,” the assassin nonetheless rebuked, scowling.

“I’d never doubt you, my _abbil_.”

“Which is why you held your tongue until after we’d long passed your earlier discharge, and all of its propagation.”

“If you ask me, this one might be beyond him,” Jarlaxle continued as though Entreri hadn’t responded.   
  
“I didn’t ask you.”

“Yes, because _I_ asked _you_.”

“And I foolishly agreed to help you.” Entreri snorted. “Never do I seem to learn my lesson, although I hope that you’ve learned yours.”

Jarlaxle didn’t respond, and Entreri knew that he wouldn’t get an admission out of the prideful mercenary. They’d finally reached the bottom of the long and winding staircase anyway, and the assassin was more than a little eager to leave behind the eccentric wizard’s beady-eyed hoard.

The assassin wasn’t comfortable in the woods. Rather than the irregular alleys and rickety walls describing every city block, nature made its own maze following a logic that he did not fully understand. But his companion, who was now leading the way, seemed confident enough, and he was further galvanized with each step that separated them from the tower. 

By the time that they finally emerged, Selûne’s glory shone across the deep tapestry of the night, and the lack of any of her trailing tears allowed the assassin to judge the the hour to be not so late as the darkness implied. He frowned. Despite his ability to see perfectly without Selûne’s light, Entreri was more attuned to brighter circumstances at this hour, an effect of the conglomerate of light sources melded within a city’s walls. 

Jarlaxle, on the other hand, hadn’t bothered to look up at the moon or the sky at all, but had already made his way far enough out of the woods that he wouldn’t start a fire. As the drow bent to set down his obsidian figurine, the assassin saw, descending fast from the sky and headed right for Jarlaxle, a swarm of large birds. Entreri began to call out, but his words died in his throat, as each member of the flock gracefully circled his companion before beating their wings to retake their altitude again. 

The bewildered man couldn’t believe his eyes at first, but after blinking, even rubbing them with both hands, did he ascertain, even if his mind couldn’t quite understand it, that most, if not all, of the birds had pointedly turned their heads to study the drow.

Jarlaxle was patting the back of his neck, studying the airborne visitors as they resumed their journey when he felt Entreri’s hand land on his shoulder, heavier than a plate pauldron. His cheery countenance turned to meet a taut deadpan.

“Who was the wizard whom we’d just called on?” Entreri bit off every word.

“Ah, the bird enthusiast?” Jarlaxle raised both white eyebrows, his smile wide and innocent.

Entreri nodded, his unblinking stare locked upon his companion’s ruby gaze. “Yes. What did you call him? Something… thologist?”

Those ruby eyes wanted to dart out of that awful stare that captured them, but Jarlaxle knew that even the slightest shift would give him away. He held out both hands helplessly – slowly and out very far from his body, the assassin noted.

“…Ornithologist?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy did I have a hard time trying to come up with a setting-appropriate term for "bathroom". XD I'm still not sure that "privy" is a Realmsian-enough term, but it's better than "water closet", "toilet", "lavatory", and of course, "bathroom". "Chamberpot" would've definitely worked, but a fancy-shmancy wizard wouldn't settle for just that when he could rig up an irrigation system, not to mention Jarlaxle would never be so undignified to use someone else's chamberpot (or even one at all). Ok I guess this is getting a bit gross. XD
> 
> Selûne, in addition to being a goddess, is an interchangeable word for "moon" in Faerûn. The "Tears of Selûne" is the asteroid cluster that trails behind the moon in its orbit around Toril. The tears rise and set on their own time, making their visibility a natural tool for telling how late it is. It's only semi-reliable though, because the tears aren't visible every night. Nonetheless, Artemis would certainly be familiar with looking to the skies to estimate the time, even though he's more of a city-person than a wilderness type. In the dark destitute alleys that he grew up in, it wouldn't be unlikely that the only light he'd see at night were those in the sky.


	3. Between a Roc and Hard Ground

A buzz sounded from the mercenary’s hip. Jarlaxle’s smile faltered. 

“By every layer of the infinite Abyss,” Entreri cursed as he reached for Jarlaxle’s belt pouch, but before he could touch it, the flap flew open, and out shot a gold flare straight up to pierce the night sky. Both companions watched with jaws agape, Entreri’s balled fists shaking at his side and Jarlaxle absentmindedly buckling his pouch closed again. 

When darkness finally managed to swallow up the flare’s light, the assassin whirled on his companion and seized the mercenary by both shoulders. 

“You. Never. Learn. Do you?!” Entreri spat, each word punctuated by a violent shake of the drow. 

“Please, Artemis, spare me,” Jarlaxle gasped, his face turning ashen again. “I think I’m having a relapse of earlier…”

“I don’t care!” Entreri shouted in his companion’s face before pushing him roughly away. Jarlaxle fell clumsily to his rump and immediately doubled forward, clutching his stomach. The pitiful sight dissolved the castigating words hanging at the tip of Entreri’s tongue. 

Still, the assassin could not contain his anger. Turning away from Jarlaxle, he roared his fury to the sky, his fists shaking with impotent rage at not being able to throttle the drow, who was already so impaired.

Neither of them expected an answer to Entreri’s call. The cry that pierced the sky reverberated so deeply in both of their frames that the assassin’s ire drained from him faster than would the heat from his body had he been plunged into an icy lake.

There, above them, was a majestic bird, and Entreri quickly picked out the hooked beak and sharp claws of a predator. By its sleek body and thick neck, he guessed it to be an eagle of some sort, except he hadn’t heard of any eagles possessing such a varied plumage. Even bathing fully in Selûne’s light, the beast’s body was almost indiscernible, so deeply cerulean were its feathers. It was as though the creature was born from the night sky itself, Its august wings unfurling like a birthing shroud sewn with shimmering golden threads, their azure tips merging imperceptibly back into the night. 

Then, Entreri realized, in the short few breaths that he’d spent admiring it, the creature had multiplied more than ten times, perhaps a hundred times, in size, and it was getting bigger at an alarming rate. Another cry from the bird, more a roar than a screech, hammered the assassin’s frame with understanding. It wasn’t getting bigger, it was getting closer. 

The alarmed man spun to find his companion curled on his side, clutching his stomach and trembling. Entreri could no longer hear Jarlaxle’s pained moans, for the air was dominated by a sound that reminded him of a desert sandstorm. 

With no regard for the mercenary who’d begun to retch, nor for the putrid substance that was spilling out of him again, the assassin grabbed his companion underneath the armpits and began dragging him bodily towards the end of the woods. He chanced to look up, seeing nothing but a darkness that even his magically-enhanced vision could not penetrate. Only his finely-honed instincts saved both of them then, for without even knowing why, Entreri tossed his companion forward while kicking himself back. He ended up rolling many more paces than he’d intended, for a great wind buffeted him as though he were no more than a tumbleweed. Nonetheless, he was grateful, for he’d gladly accept his new bruises and scratches in lieu of failing to avoid the gargantuan talons that dug long troughs deep in the hard earth. As he catapulted himself up from his stomach and back onto his feet, the assassin couldn’t help but gawk, for in place of the formerly rocky ground were three deep trenches, the least of them wider than the streets on which he’d grown up. 

Entreri shook his head and forced his mind away from envisioning himself as little more than bloody detritus in one of those troughs. Across the crevasses, he spotted his companion, feebly dragging himself towards the forest’s edge.

Gritting his teeth, Entreri charged at Jarlaxle, another cry from the monster overhead nearly knocking his legs out from underneath him. When the assassin finally caught up to his companion and seized him by the back of the collar, words thundered across the sky, and Entreri briefly wondered if his lifelong scorning of the gods was less than prudent. He could offer no explanation for the voice, other than that a greater deity had shouted directly at them from their empyrean domain. Still, his body didn’t allow his mind any of its resources, as he pulled, hauled and threw the both of them into the cover of the trees.

Once in the “shelter”, Entreri regretted his choice immediately, for the thick trunks swayed like mere reeds in the breeze. Still-green leaves were whipped from swaying branches, which came crashing down around the pair. The cyclone ringing louder in his ears than his elevated heartbeat, Entreri dragged his companion to the thickest tree in proximity, tucking both of them as compactly as he could underneath the arching roots. He wanted to squeeze his eyes closed and curl up like his companion had, but he growled and settled for squeezing the skeletal hilt of Charon’s Claw. He hardly knew why he bothered, for even the mighty Claw seemed no more threatening than a toothpick to the monstrous avian. Based on what little he’d seen of it, Entreri knew that they were to it as mice were to an elephant.

He couldn’t have predicted what transpired next. A tremor so great shook the ground beneath them that Entreri wondered if Toril itself was splitting apart, followed by a gust that peeled the bark off of the trees. The sturdy trunk above them bent away before finally uprooting completely. Again, it was the assassin’s finely-honed instincts that saved him and his companion, for he drove Charon’s Claw into the tremulous earth until more than half the blade was buried, his strong grip their only anchor as their bodies whipped helplessly like flags of surrender in the relentless gust. Layers from his thick glove peeled away before his eyes in the seemly unending gale, as they did from his vambraces. He didn’t bother to try to catch his heavy cloak when it, too, capitulated to the vicious onslaught, nor did he protest when his shoulderguards left his service abruptly. He winced as he felt his skin abrading, but his only other response was to draw the mercenary closer. Jarlaxle hadn’t made any sounds, and it wasn’t solely the perilous circumstance that prevented Entreri from considering the implications of his uncharacteristically quiet companion.

Entreri felt his body painfully strike the ground before he’d realized that the windstorm had passed. As he lifted his head, he found himself pinned, inexorably, with absolutely no chance of escape, by a stare that rendered his own steely gaze feeble by comparison. Staring down an ivory beak that was thicker than he was tall were two orbs, blacker than the deepest depths of the Underdark. Yet, within those bottomless spheres, shined an acuity that put the edge of his keen dagger to shame. 

_Not mice to an elephant_ , Entreri realized grimly. _Ticks to an elephant._

He didn’t know how many thin breaths he drew, paralyzed under the god-like being’s gaze. He’d forgotten about his companion, until the drow stirred and managed to weakly lift his head up. Entreri felt rather than heard Jarlaxle’s soft gasp, but judging from the sharpening of the light in the monster’s eyes, both of them had sensed it. 

“INSIGNIFICANT MORSELS,” the creature boomed, its voice causing both companions to cringe away, “EVEN THE BIRD-FRIEND WAS NOT SO IMPRUDENT AS TO BE IMPUDENT BY SUMMONING ONE OF MY STATURE WITHOUT THE PROPER OFFERING! YET I SEE NEITHER ELEPHANT NOR MOOSE, NOT EVEN SO MUCH AS A SINGLE ROTHÉ!”

The gigantic beak clacked, and Entreri couldn’t help but imagine his own body falling away in two neatly-cut pieces from it.

"SPEAK! I SHALL GIVE YOU ONE CHANCE TO HUMOR ME, BUT ONE CHANCE ONLY, AND KNOW THAT IT IS GRANTED FROM THAT YOU BOTH LOOK TOO RANGY TO MAKE EVEN A SATISFACTORY MEAL FOR MY BROOD!”

The assassin’s dried lips parted, but his even dryer throat refused to emit a sound. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw his companion shakily rise, dipping clumsily into a bow. Whether Jarlaxle was suffering from the same fear that crippled himself or the physical weakness from before, Entreri knew not, but when the mercenary fell back down onto his knees, the assassin’s heart fell with him.

_And so it ends_ , thought Entreri. 

"I want one,” he heard Jarlaxle whisper, and despite the danger inherent in breaking eye contact with the deadly predator, he had to ascertain with his own eyes whether his companion had lost the last of his wits.

_He’s completely gone_ , Entreri thought grimly, when he saw the grin and the nigh-maniacal glint in those ruby eyes.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” thundered the beast.

The drow clumsily struggled to his feet again, and this time, successfully performed his customary bow. 

“My good madam,” Jarlaxle began, his hat held to his chest, “I fear that my friend and I were tasked with the unenviable duty to inform your most exalted self that the esteemed Bird-Friend has passed on.”

“ _WHAT DID YOU SAY_?!” the monster roared, and Entreri saved from vocalizing the same thing, for he was too busy shrinking away from the boom.

The corners of Jarlaxle’s lips did quiver as he fought the urge to wince, but he managed to keep his expression steady. The drow nodded somberly. 

“Alas, it transpired so quickly. We’d received a sending from the good man himself, and as we were on our way to call upon him, we’d received another sending, albeit this one was curtailed. His message was interrupted by some sort of magical interference, and all we were able to discern was his desire to convey his final well-wishes to his ‘greatest of friends’." 

The gigantic bird let out a deafening squawk. "INSOLENT INSECTS! YOUR IMPETUOUSNESS KNOWS NO BOUNDS! YOU DARE LIE TO ME?

Jarlaxle’s hands were already desperately waving in the air. "We would not dream of it, most esteemed one! Please consider this: it is not mere coincidence that you have graced us with your august presence. It was indeed the Bird-Friend’s will!" 

Without thinking, Entreri drew the wand from Jarlaxle’s belt pouch, holding it out for his companion to take. However, the mercenary didn’t take it, instead grandly swinging both arms to indicate the wand held in the assassin’s fingertips. 

"Good madam, do you recognize this?”

The ruffled feathers on that great avian head smoothed as the keen eyes studied the thin stick. Since Jarlaxle clearly had more urgent matters to attend to, Entreri considered personally uttering, “Ornithologist”, but his heart was in his throat. Just when the assassin was certain that he’d regurgitate his heart, the enormous creature finally responded.

“It seems that there is truth in your words. Bird-Friend never allowed that out of his sight." 

Entreri began to breathe a sigh of relief, when another thunderous vocalization knocked the breath out of him.

"DO NOT TAKE ME FOR A FOOL, INSIGNIFICANT PESTS! I KNOW THE VILENESS OF YOUR FEATHERLESS, TWO-LEGGED KIND. DARE YOU TO THINK THAT I WOULDN’T DISCERN THAT YOU ARE NAUGHT BUT MERE THIEVES?”

Entreri wondered if those bottomless orbs were scouring his soul. Nonetheless, he kept his expression vague, and continued to stiffly hold onto the wand. He didn’t like it, but had to swallow the reality that it was all in Jarlaxle’s hands now.

_Again_ , the assassin thought with disgust.

The mercenary was patting the air, his expression aggrieved. "Nay, good madam, I implore you, do not wrong us so! We bear the noblest of intentions, in conveying the message of a mutual friend. Were we the mere thieves of which you speak, would we have been able to call upon you?”

Jarlaxle had the avian’s full attention now, and Entreri wondered if that would grant him enough time to attempt to escape while the monster snapped the drow up whole.

“It is no mere chance!” the drow continued. “Please consider, good madam, was Bird-Friend one who relied on coincidence?”

The large ivory beak parted, and every chord of muscle in Entreri’s body tensed. However, to his surprise, the gigantic head cocked, and the beak clacked a few times. The air rushing from each clack felt like a massive ball of wet earth being slammed into his ribs, but the assassin gritted his teeth and held absolutely still.

Above them, Selûne had climbed higher, and Entreri saw the beads of sweat hanging off the back of his companion’s smooth scalp. He forced his gaze upon one of those beads, his stare so intense that it was as though he was trying to evaporate it by sheer force of will alone. It was all he could do to prevent his sensibilities from unraveling in the implacable gaze of the monstrous predator.

Finally, after the assassin had to shift his gaze to many new beads, the gigantic bird spoke again. However, this time, its voice was akin to a flowing river, rather than a tumultuous waterfall.

“You’d called upon my mate, but he is no more,” the creature said. “He was the one that Bird-Friend called 'greatest of friends’.”

Entreri dared to look into those dark pools again, and was surprised to find melancholy therein. Jarlaxle apparently saw it too, and to the assassin’s shock and disbelief, his unpredictable companion actually approached the great creature, even dared to set his hand upon its deadly beak!

“Aye, good madam, but it is no coincidence that you are here. You see, it was never simply your mate who was his greatest of friends. It was all of you - your mate, yourself, and your brood.”

To Entreri’s further surprise, not only did Jarlaxle not lose a hand, the great creature even leaned into his touch. Wide lids closed over the colossal orbs, and another silence fell over the trio.

Suddenly, the giant eyes opened again, and the enormous head lifted away. The force nearly swept both assassin and mercenary forward. 

“The magic fades, little ones. The Land of Fate calls me back.” The avian spread its enormous wings, and Entreri’s heart dropped into his stomach. Visions from another lifetime filled him, of a great red dragon whose lair he’d been dragged into by this very same drow. He wondered why he’d let history repeat itself.

“In return for this kindness, you are welcome in my home, should you ever find yourselves in Zakhara.” the great bird said. Then, there was nothing except the wide expanse and the night sky. The creature’s voice still echoed, but there was no trace of it except for the troughs it’d clawed in the dirt, and the wrecked forest it left in its wake. 

Well, almost. Before the pair, where the creature had stood a heartbeat before, was a single gigantic azure feather. 

The wand fell from Entreri’s fingers as he brought both hands to his face and slowly dragged his palms down his angular features. A shuffling from beside the assassin lifted his head to behold his companion, who was attempting to pick up the gigantic feather.

Entreri pushed himself up onto his rear and scowled at Jarlaxle’s back. 

“What are you doing?”

All he got in response was a face full of azure plume.

“Beautiful, is it not?” Jarlaxle cooed, gently stroking the sky-blue vanes and paying no heed to his companion’s flailing arms that desperately tried to push away the barbs enveloping him. 

A growl and a “ ** _shliss_**!” answered the mercenary, and the assassin stepped free amidst a flurry of shaved down. Jarlaxle let out a cry of dismay.

“Oh, but why, my _abbil_? It was perfect!”

“Was,” Entreri replied shortly. The scrape of his dagger sliding into its sheathe accentuated the finality of his pronouncement. 

Jarlaxle sighed and gazed regretfully at the formerly perfectly-shaped blue feather.

“What would you have even done with it anyway?” Entreri snapped.

Jarlaxle pointed forlornly at his wide-brimmed hat, which was still missing its characteristic feather.

“It’s bigger than you!” the irritated human gestured with wide flung arms.

Jarlaxle simply shrugged. “That hardly matters, especially not now after it’s been ruined.” Brightening, he added, “At least we know how to get another one!”

Entreri boggled. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not? We were invited, after all!”

“Even if I agreed to accompany you to far away Zakhara, which I most certainly will not, I possess no desire to fight a creature that could swallow me whole for the sake of your vanity,” Entreri said with a grimace.

To the assassin’s chagrin, the drow laughed.   
  
“It’s no wonder that you possess so few friends, my _abbil_. When one is invited to call upon another, it isn’t a challenge to fight.”

“It would hardly be a fight when I would be swallowed whole before I could draw.”

“Foolishness doesn’t suit you, my friend _._ We’d be no more than mere morsels for a creature such as that, she even informed us of such! Besides, there is more than one way to obtain a feather.”

“Truly, you know how to comfort me. I suppose we could politely beg it to spare us one of its many fine plumes?” Entreri deadpanned.

Jarlaxle laughed again. “Beg? Hardly! I’d think by now you’d have realized that I have a way with women.” He winked.

“Women?!” Entreri rocked back onto his heels. “That _thing_ is bigger than Hephaestus! I wish not to attempt to negotiate with such a creature.”

Mischief curled up one corner of the drow’s lips. “Oh, but she was beautiful, was she not?”

The assassin didn’t respond. He was simply grateful that it’d been many bells since he’d eaten. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The giant bird that Jarlaxle accidentally summoned is a Zakharan roc, and, as luck would have it, the biggest variety of one: the great roc. These birds are 120 feet long with a 270 feet wingspan, making their bodies as large as those of adult red dragons (the largest species of chromatic dragons) with a wingspan that dwarfs that of the red dragon. 
> 
> Great rocs have been known to speak the languages of humanoid races, but typically they don’t speak Common, but rather the languages of the Land of Fate. I figured that through having a history with the bird scientist, this roc and her family picked up Common.
> 
> Unlike dragons however, even Zakharan great rocs aren’t inherently magical beings, so even if she wanted to take on a human form, it wouldn’t be something that she’d be able to enact on her own. Would Jarlaxle truly go there, though…? >_>


End file.
